Caen immediately paired Stormsong’s Mimicked enchantments with Dream-guarding. He sped up his processing and split his mind four ways, assigning them to different tasks just as a hail of crystal shards crashed into his legs painfully.

He darted left but was immediately blown to the side by a fireball. The sound of distant rumblings caused tremors to run through the ground beneath him.

“He’ll lose to the enchantments any second!” one of Caen’s assailants declared. “And Dil’s blinded him!”

With his speculon inactive and his sight blinded, Caen could not see his opponents’ magical attacks. But he could sense the weight of their existences, letting him know their precise positions.

And he could still connect to any two of them. Soul structures overlaid the entire body, allowing him to determine a person’s movements.

Caen had been rejecting emergency teleportations from his identifier necklace all this time. It grew warmer on his skin and buzzed more furiously.

With a portion of his mind, he alternated flickering Soul-sense at the Crystal and Fire practicians to keep an eye on them and disrupt their spells. At the same time, Caen charged at Dilino again, energy surging through his body.

A portion of Caen’s mind had already begun fiddling with Stormsong’s abilities. He was wary about experimentation lest he accidentally do something that he couldn’t explain away. But he just needed more strength and speed. He focused on the power within him and flared it, causing an instantaneous strain on his will.

That same moment, he felt the shield-wielder’s soul arrive as the man interposed himself between Caen and Dilino, clearly intending to intercept the strike. “Dil! Go!”

“I’m alright,” Dilino rasped with evident effort.

Stormsong barreled forward, and Caen moved with the blade, feeling wholly comfortable with its sharp and fierce motions.

Dilino’s Gleam affinity grew prominent; he peeked around the area where Caen felt the shield-wielder to be, fists braced and angled downwards. Caen could not see the spear, of course, but he knew that the man was holding it.

Caen pivoted his knee by a fraction, squeezing out every ounce of mental and physical speed he could. Something hot and painful punched through his greaves and grazed the side of his knee. Caen’s movement was uninterrupted as he swung Stormsong against the shield with the weight of their combined might.

The shield-wielder grunted loudly as he was thrown backwards with much more force than before. Dilino was shoved back as well. Caen, however, empowered by the shock wave, launched himself at Dilino. Crystal shards pierced into Caen’s injured leg. He ignored the pain, thrusting forward at frightening speed.

Dilino barely deflected the thrust with the shaft of his spear and was shoved back farther. Caen, empowered by the shock wave, pivoted sharply and brought back the deflected sword in a short arc that bludgeoned the side of the man’s head. Dilino was flung to the ground several feet away, twitching convulsively. Stormsong delivered a terrible jolt of electricity every time it struck a target.

Caen darted at him.

“For fuck’s sake, Dil!” the shield-wielder roared as he moved into Caen’s path again.

Dilino lurched to his feet and ran away, as Caen struck the shield, making its wielder stagger backwards with a grunt.

Caen spun away quickly and zigzagged towards the Fire and Crystal practicians, flickering Soul-sense at both of them as they moved backwards suspiciously. A portion of his mind had been keeping track of his orientation to the dome. And it was behind those two.

Spells slammed around Caen, some missed because of Soul-sense and his erratic movements. A Dream-guarding spell helped him ignore his injuries and keep his focus. The shield-wielder was running after him. Not fast enough.

Caen reached the other members of the group in two heartbeats. The Fire-practician bowed out immediately, her soul vanishing from his senses. His swing bit deep into the neck of the other participant’s crystal armor before she, too, vanished.

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A sudden pressure descended on Caen’s mind and body. The dome had reached him. The pressure within was heavier than it had been when the dome had reappeared on the dais. Caen did not know how long he’d have within it before he was eliminated, so he dashed out.

The shield-wielder had already begun running away. Caen jogged in the man’s direction, but without any intent to catch up to him. He just didn’t want to get trapped in the dome. Caen felt so relieved that he’d succeeded in Mimicking Stormsong’s primary enchantments in the first place.

“You’re letting another enemy escape,” Stormsong said.

Caen could feel so much eager energy within himself, prompting him to move, to do something. He didn’t even feel tired, which was concerning. “I’m blind, Stormsong. I need to heal up.”

“You’re wasting time. What do you need eyes for? You have the most powerful weapon in the trials!”

“And I have you to thank for that, but I’d like both my eyes and the weapon,” Caen said.

“Hmph! First decent wielder in so long and always fluctuating,” Stormsong grumbled. “Make it quick then.”

Caen stopped Mimicking Stormsong’s ability. The sword slammed into its scabbard, sending out a shock wave.

Caen was shoved into a wall beside him. Then he fell to a knee as mind-blanking pain crashed into him from all the injuries he’d been ignoring. He felt so exhausted. So tired and hungry. He was in need of sleep and in so much pain. He was already casting Body-enhancement and Blood-healing spells to handle the bone-deep fatigue and his wounds, especially the damage he’d sustained to his eyes.

He rejected another emergency transit from his identifier necklace as he rose to his feet shakily and began moving again.

Now that his speculon was functional, he could see once more. But he didn’t make that obvious. He had an audience who probably thought he was blind, and he couldn’t reveal the existence of his speculon. The walls, the ground, even the sky above, and the large creatures flying there, seemed to be leeched of all color. The passageway had changed significantly from what it had looked like a minute ago. The dome was expanding slowly but building up speed. His helmet and the lower half of his armor were severely damaged.

Caen balked at his reserves: he only had a third of his mana remaining. He immediately adjusted his healing and endurance spells to take up much less mana. Still jogging, he stopped channeling mana into Stormsong, opting instead to drag it on the ground behind him, like many previous unsuccessful wielders who’d run out of mana.

He briefly paired Blood-healing with Chasma’s spirit receptor, losing sight in the process.

“Chasma, could you please grow me some Parthran fruits like we practiced?” Caen asked in the Parthran language.

The fragment complied, and in a moment, several fruits pressed against his face.

Caen expressed regard and gratitude to the fragment. He would have to feed it afterwards. He Mimicked absorption, pairing it with Blood-healing, and was soon invigorated by the steady inflow of vitality, which brought nourishment, energized him, and stimulated his natural healing. With the short time frame they had, this was functionally a quick fix, but it was already helping a great deal.

Every few seconds, he temporarily reverted his soul structure just so he could get a glimpse of his surroundings with his speculon. Whenever he did this, he extended his vines out in four directions, as though to help him sense his way around the labyrinth. Some vines would graze the walls to either side of him to ‘check’ for turns, new passageways, and junctions.

Also, whenever a vine crossed into the dome, it was weighed down by the dome’s suppression field, thus allowing him to ‘keep track’ of the dome's speed and location. He retracted his vines whenever he switched back to pairing absorption with Blood-healing. Chasma had produced more fruit than he could quickly absorb. And he was making progress in healing his body and eyes.

A low rumble preceded the passageway shifting, as the walls of the labyrinth around him reorganized themselves, merging with another passage and blocking his path. There was a new opening to his left, however. He saw this with his speculon, but of course, his vines played their role. He’d also tilted his head as though he were trying hard to listen for changes.

A participant rushed around a bend in the distance: the Returned, as the announcer had called them. He lacked color. His face and armor ranged between shades of black and white. Something about this reminded Caen of an effect he’d seen when Magister Fermien had explained Ardor to him and Zeris.

A lightning bolt hit Caen square in the chest, flowing into Stormsong and the rest being absorbed by Chasma. As Caen flickered Soul-sense at the man, he channeled mana into Stormsong, unsheathed the weapon, and began charging in his general direction.

Just before he reached the Lightning practician, three five-foot-tall badgers raced towards him from a new passageway. They appeared drained of color as well. His vines flailed around him to act as a detection system as he dispatched them quickly. He took another lightning attack to the chest before putting down the last badger. The Lightning practician vanished in a pillar of light.

This half of the trial was going to be difficult enough while pretending to be blind. The exit points were at the edge of the arena, and Caen needed a way to get there quickly. Divination was an option, but there was a much quicker way to do this.

Without turning his head, Caen glanced at a labyrinth wall beside him.

“Stormsong, how well would you say your enchantments hold against dense crystal?”